Counting Down to the Election

Virginia Democrats will spend this weekend kicking off a massive canvassing effort in the final days before the Nov. 4 election.

Surrogates will visit several of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign offices across the state to rally volunteers before they begin the last 12 days of knocking on doors and calling potential voters.

Today, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a national chairman for Obama's campaign, will appear in Fairfax and Prince William counties and Donna Brazile, a political strategist who was Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, will be in Richmond.

Tomorrow, former Navy Secretary John Dalton and Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, former commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, will visit offices in Winchester, Harrisonburg and Staunton. C. Richard Cranwell, chairman of the state Democratic party, will be in Roanoke. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe will appear in Arlington. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Brian J. Moran of Alexandria will visit the South Hill office.

Kaine's wife, First Lady Anne Holton, started the events Friday afternoon in Warrenton.

I heard at work one voter say that he voted for Bush because he thinks we needed to go into Iraq and annihilate so many Iraqis that the rest could not possibly represent any resistance to our being there, taking their oil, and setting up bases to go after Iran.

I admitted that certainly such a plan would solve many of our problems in the Middle East. . . . But try to find a President that would do that. For sure, even Bush wasn't going to be willing to annihilate that many people. Maybe if my fellow worker could find a Hitler to vote for, his plan could succeed. But unless we were willing to annihilate all those Iraqis, then the best course of action would be not to invade Iraq in the first place.

The same reasoning governs immigration and the growing Latino population. . . . . . . I think, overpopulation is one of America’s and the world’s biggest problems. But unless we have candidates, or perhaps a President who is willing to tackle overpopulation as a problem, then why vote for a Republican. Somewhere is this illusion that the Republicans will go against their Corporate Masters and crack down on immigration, but they have shown no real interest in doing so.

So therefore, why vote against our own best interest, which the Democrats represent ( unless you are in the top 5 or even 10% of the wealthiest people in America ). The best choice is to ignore the urge to vote for Republicans over the influx of illegals or overpopulation, because neither party will do anything about it; and in the end the Republicans will simply screw you to enhance the transfer of wealth to the rich.

Virginia's Republicans want to cut funding for eduction for both K-12 and higher eduction. If you think our budget should be balanced on the backs of children, disabled, mentally ill, elderly or college students, then go ahead and support them. If you think that elder care, health care, homeland security, mental health and education are vital to our society, vote for the Democrats.

But do realize that we now need to compete in the global economy more than anytime in history. We can't do that without higher education and a well trained work force.

The writing and critical thinking skills that need to be learned in our schools are clearly not being taught. To wit, the previous post.